University tops out its newest residence hall

A year before Morgan Hall is slated to open, university officials celebrated the “topping out” of what Acting President Richard Englert called a “landmark of North Philadelphia.”

Englert, along with Trustee Mitchell Morgan and his wife Hilarie, who bear the name of the residence hall, led a ceremony in which members of the administration and construction workers signed the ceremonial top beam, before it was hoisted high above the gathering, Wednesday, July 25.

After a champagne toast to the building, the ceremony moved to a reception on the 21st floor of the 27-story hall where onlookers took stock of the view of Center City and North Broad Street from the tower.

University Architect Margaret Carney said the view from the hall reminds her of the “vastness of the city” and said that it’s “appropriate” that it’s the first thing noticed past the Center City skyline along North Broad Street.

Englert also said that the building is vital to improving and driving the community around Temple. Said Englert, “We cannot overemphasize the importance of this building to Temple Universityand the revitalization of North Philadelphia.”

The Temple News first reported that the hall would don the Morgans’ name after a December Board of Trustees meeting. The couple donated $5 million to the project.

Morgan Hall, located on North Broad Street between Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Oxford, will house 1,200 beds, a dining facility and retail space at the street level. The hall is due to open in Fall 2013.

Sean Carlin can be reached at sean.carlin@temple.edu or on Twitter @SeanCarlin84.

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The Temple News has been the paper of record for the Temple University community since it first printed as Temple University Weekly on Sept. 19, 1921. The award-winning student publication, editorially independent of Temple, now publishes every Tuesday and daily online. The Temple News distributes 5,000 printed copies, free of charge, to the university’s primary locations in the Delaware Valley.